Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Royalty Comes to “Shangri-La”
The Irish poet Thomas Moore and the
American humorist Mark Twain publi-
cized the glories of Bermuda, but—for
the British, at least—the woman who
put Bermuda on the tourist map was
Princess Louise. The daughter of Queen
Victoria, she spent several months in
Bermuda in 1883. Her husband was the
governor-general of Canada, so she
traveled to Bermuda to escape the
fierce northern cold. Although Bermuda
hosted many royal visitors in the 20th
century, including Queen Elizabeth II,
Princess Louise was the first royal per-
sonage to set foot in the colony. When
she returned to Canada, she told
reporters that she'd found the Shangri-
La of tourist destinations.
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Other well-known authors who visited Bermuda over the years include Rudyard
Kipling, C. S. Forester, Hugh Walpole, Edna Ferber, Anita Loos, John O'Hara, E. B.
White, and Philip Wylie.
Bermuda's own writers include William S. Zuill—a former director of the Bermuda
National Trust who wrote
The Story of Bermuda and Her People,
an excellent histori-
cal account—and Nellie Musson, Frank Manning, Eva Hodgson, and Dale Butler,
who have written about the lives of African Bermudians.
RECOMMENDED READING
Most of the topics listed below have been printed in Bermuda. Thus, while they're
readily available on the island, they may be hard to find in the United States and
elsewhere.
The Mysterious Bermuda Triangle
Many writers have attempted to explain the Bermuda Triangle. None has sufficiently
done so yet, but all of these topics make good reads for those of us intrigued by this
tantalizing mystery.
The best of the lot is
The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved
(Prometheus Books) by
Larry Kusche. It's a good read even though it doesn't actually “solve” the mystery. A
mass-market paperback,
Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle
(Berkley Publishing Group), by
Greg Donegan, also digs into the puzzle; as does another paperback,
The Mystery of
the Bermuda Triangle
(Heineman Library), by Chris Oxlade.
Art & Architecture
For Bermuda style, both inside the house and outside, two topics lead the pack:
Ber-
muda Antique Furniture and Silver,
published by Bermuda National Trust; and
Archi-
tecture Bermuda Style,
by David R. Raine, issued by Pompano Publications.
Divers, Hikers & Shipwrecks
Daniel Berg has written the finest book on the shipwrecks of Bermuda—a great
choice for a diver to read before actually going under the water. It's called
Bermuda
Shipwrecks: A Vacationing Diver's Guide to Bermuda's Shipwrecks
(Aqua Explorers).
Divers might also like to pick up a copy of
Marine Fauna and Flora of Bermuda
(Wiley Publishing, Inc.), edited by Wolfgang Sterrer. Another good book for divers is
Diving Bermuda
(Aqua Quest Publications), part of the Aqua Quest Diving Series,
this one authored by Jesse Concelmo and Michael Strohofer. Its second edition is the
most up-to-date of all the sports guides to Bermuda.
